Title: Too the two Mark's!
Post by Simon Smailus on May 30th, 2015, 4:28am
I realise that TB can be used in a multitude of ways. I would be very interested to follow a thread that outlines how Mark A and Mark B use TB on a day-by-day basis and what workflows you use. It seems that the both of you are obviously the most experienced and knowledgeable about TB and will probably shed light on its usage I would never even think of. I realise that these things cost time so am not expecting a daily update, but just enough so we can see how you work with TB and what you use it for.

Many thanks

Simon

Title: Re: Too the two Mark's!
Post by Mark Bernstein on May 30th, 2015, 10:18am
itís Saturday morning, it's broiling hot, and I've got commitments South Of Boston for much of the day. So it's a light day of Tinderbox, but so far:

a) quick fix to my weblog Tinderbox to publish a note on A Natural History Of Dragons.

b) Lindaís Harvard Commencement was Thursday, and all that energy and inspiration got to me. Iíve dusted off the fiction project -- its own Tinderbox -- and added 1400 words to a new first chapter (Going Down), describing the day the Revolution came to our elite (albeit colonial) prep school.

c) Tinkered a bit with the dashboard for the fiction project to take advantage of the new progress bar facilities in the forthcoming Tinderbox release.

d) Notices a subtle bug in the inspector while tinkering, so that becomes issue #1497. Fortunately, the issues are automatically numbered by an OnAdd action!

Thatís it for me; breakfast time.

Title: Re: Too the two Mark's!
Post by Mark Anderson on May 30th, 2015, 10:42am
My use is perhaps odd. My personal salt mine is aTbRef - currently in need of much overhaul since v6 changes to the UI meant I couldn't just keep adding to things - as I did for the previous 8+ years of its writing. The fun side is it's big enough to experiment. If you gab the TBX you'll be able to see how the export works; the RSS and Atom feed, an XML sitemap, the HTML sitemap page, etc. A deliberate part of its structure is an attempt to do lots of rich linking. I write - or rather HTML publish it - to assist others and I'm constantly reminded how one can't predict how people read - or what they want to read. However, working daily on such a doc is a joy in terms of making me think about hypertext design, linking, and envisioning hypertexts.

I encourage other to poke in the corners too. I've found that the process if documenting how stuff works has made me realise bits I don't understand and encouraged me to resolve those lacunae.

My study (a Web Science MSc last year and now continuation to PhD studies in the same) has tended to place me in use of:

Ingest of tab-delimted tables

Use of Outline+columns and increasingly Attribute Browser (+ columns) to review research data. I'd use maps more but I screen space and concomitant usability mean maps of 000s of items aren't too practical.

Lastly, helping here - and some Tinderbox consulting off camera - results in a lot of the most interesting Tb challenges and learning. Having to solve other people's problems pushes ego to the back and let's one think more purely about working in TB. My own personal work in TB is massively enriched by constantly being forced to use parts of the app I may not otherwise touch and to explore the limits - if such there are with an open-ended app - of TB. At this point I should attest to the wonderful responsive manner of Eastgate. A small shop can't build everything for everyone but I'm constantly surprised by new improvements arising as a result if working through issues thrown up by users. I think Eastgate, as a publisher (yes, I know that's just Mark B butÖ) are interesting in the willingness to listen to users ideas, if expressed clearly, and to try and accommodate them where feasible.

Hmm, as is my wont, I've probably wandered off piste a little but that's how I use the app. Perhaps a little differently than supposed...